1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to computer systems and, in particular, to computer systems for processing information from multiple sources.
2. Related Art
Current Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems along with other systems that process and present business data typically allow users to search, view and manipulate data from multiple sources having incompatible formats using a common interface. Typically, these systems provide a portal-like front end that present a broad categorization of the information available and the user can drill-down on specific information the user of interest. XML (extensible markup language) is sometimes used to capture information that is not displayed by the front end, but can be used by a computer program (e.g. a search engine) to analyze the content of the information displayed by the front end. A semantic web, for example, has been proposed that would use XML to allow search engines to recognize and analyze semantic information embedded on webpages. Prior art CRM systems, however, are typically based on custom programs tailored to a specific business process. As a result, these systems require users to specify in advance how the data extracted from the underlying data sources is presented to the user. Furthermore, any changes to the way the data is presented or to the business process require extensive modifications of the underlying programs to be performed by skilled programmers. As a result, these systems are not well suited to implementing dynamic business processes that may need to be modified on a regular basis. It would be desirable to provide a system that can be dynamically modified in response to changes in the underlying business processes.
In addition, using these systems, the entire business process must be modeled in advance and the user must navigate through the same path every time an operation is performed. As a result, the navigation options available to each user must be defined before the program is written. This is particularly undesirable in situations where information is to be presented to the user depending on the contextual situation of the operation performed by the user. Using current systems, in fact, each situation in which the information is to be presented by the user must be recognized ahead of time and provided for in the program. By contrast, it would be desirable to provide a system that dynamically routes the user to relevant information depending on the contextual situation of the user's operation.